Wise Kwai's Thai Film Journal

Here's the women in the new Jan Dara

2012-05-25T20:49:00.001+07:00

Yaya Ying takes the coveted temptress role in the new Jan Dara.

When word first started circulating that veteran director and dramatist ML Bhandevanop "Mom Noi" Devakula wanted to remake Jan Dara, much of the speculation about the project had to do with who would take on the roles of the various women in the erotic drama.

Based on a novel by Utsana Phleungtham, Jan Dara (จัน ดารา) is a tale of family dysfunction and rivalry between a womanizing nobleman and his illegitimate son. It was previously adapted as a film by Nonzee Nimibutr in 2001. In the new version, the bastard son Jan will be portrayed by Love of Siam heartthrob Mario Maurer.

Now, with news of the new Jan Dara's success at the Cannes Film Market, studio Sahamongkolfilm International has decided it's time to send out a press release to clear things up and put an end to the rumors about the female roles.

Starring as Boonleuang will be Ratha Pho-ngam (รฐา โพธิ์งาม). She's Jan's father's worldly live-in mistress, previously portrayed by Hong Kong's Christy Chung. Better known as Yayaying, Ratha is a 29-year-old pop singer who's the daughter of comedienne Noi Po-ngam, making her the niece of veteran comedian and actor Thep Po-ngam. If IMDb can be believed, Yaya or Ying or Yayaying made her feature-film debut in Only God Forgives, the crime drama starring Ryan Gosling that director Nicolas Winding Refn recently filmed in Bangkok.

Names previously rumored in connection to the role have been Marsha Wattanapanich and "Benz" Pornchita na Songkhla. But, sorry ladies, no dice.

It's been known for awhile that actress "Tak" Bongkot Kongmalai had a role in Jan Dara, but now it's been confirmed that she'll portray Waad, the aunt/stepmother (it's complicated) of Jan. Waad was portrayed in Nonzee's version by Wipawee Jaroenpura. Tak's just 27, and already she's being shunted into the "mother" roles.

Another actress that's been mentioned is Japanese AV star Sho Nishino, and she's in the movie, somewhere, likely among the coterie of women that Jan's sex-crazed father keeps around.

P-047 in LA Film Festival

2012-05-25T14:00:00.000+07:00

It's been awhile since I've heard anything about Kongej Jaturanrasamee's mind-blowing P-047 (Tae Peang Phu Deaw, แต่เพียงผู้เดียว), which premiered as a last-minute selection at last year's Venice fest and also played a few other places, including the World Film Festival of Bangkok.

P-047 is still on the festival circuit, and is set for the Los Angeles Film Festival. Here's the synopsis:

Lek and Kong work side by side at the shopping mall. Lek is a lonely locksmith, and Kong is an aspiring writer. When Kong comes up with a plan to put Lek’s lock picking skills to good use, the two start breaking into other people’s homes, not to steal anything but just to bask temporarily in the lives of others. One day, Kong pries too deeply into someone else’s life, and things grow rather complicated.

Recalling Christopher Nolan by way of Wong Kar-wai, P-047 beautifully weaves together flashbacks, fantasy sequences and fragmented memories into a film that is part meditation, part multilayered mystery and utterly fascinating.

Also of possible interest in the LAFF is the Malaysian crime drama Bunohan: Return to Murder by Dain Said. Set in the "badlands" along the Malaysian-Thai border, it involves three estranged brothers, one of whom is on the run from a hitman after a Muay Thai deathmatch. There's also Return to Burma, the documentary-style account of a migrant laborer's return to Myanmar after 10 years of working in Taiwan.

Hopefully P-047 will turn up again in Bangkok for a regular theatrical release, sometime this year. I'd like to see it again.

The Los Angeles Film Festival runs from June 14 to 24.

7th Association for Southeast Asian Cinemas conference, June 19-22, Singapore

2012-05-25T12:00:00.000+07:00

The seventh Association of Southeast Asian Cinemas conference is set for June 19 to 22 in Singapore.

A semi-annual event, this year it is being held at the National Museum of Singapore, and is being sponsored by a grant from the Centre for Liberal Arts and Social Sciences at Nanyang Technological University. As a result of the grant, Aseac is able to waive all registration fees.

This year's focus is "The Politics, Practices and Poetics of the Archive". The opening-night address is "Adventures in the Film Archives" by Thomas Doherty, Shaw Foundation professor at Nanyang Technological University.

There will be presentations of academic papers, panel discussions by film experts and filmmakers and, of course, screenings.

Among the films will be 1954's After the Curfew by "the father of Indonesian cinema", Usmar Ismail. Others are Rithy Panh's Bophana: A Cambodian Tragedy, Davy Chou's Golden Slumbers, and a selection from the sixth Bangkok Experimental Film Festival, which also focused on archives.

Deadlines for booking rooms for the conference has already passed, due to deals with the various hotels, but casual registrants have until June 4 to turn in their forms.

Cannes buyers lust after Jan Dara remake

2012-05-23T20:57:00.001+07:00

Bidding wars erupted at the Cannes Film Market, where Sahamongkolfilm International is pushing director ML Bhandevanop "Mom Noi" Devakula's remake of the erotic drama Jan Dara (จัน ดารา).

Touted as "Thailand’s first erotic drama intended for theatrical release" it's been sold to South Korea's Daisy and Cinergy, Hong Kong's Edko, Clover Films in Singapore, Taiwan's Applause and Pioneer in the Philippines.

“We also have a lot of interest from Japanese and European distributors,” Sahamongkol executive vice president Gilbert Lim is quoted as saying by Screen Daily.

According to the industry journal, Jan Dara is in production and aiming or a September release in Thailand.

It stars Mario Maurer as the bastard son of a nobleman who is caught up in the dysfunctional family relations and a sexual rivalry with his father. Mario will portray the character Jan from his teenage years through adulthood. Images on the Kapook website show what Mario might look like.

Screen says that others in the cast are Thai actress Rhatha "Yayaying" Pho-ngam, who is also featured in Nicolas Winding Refn’s Bangkok crime drama Only God Forgives and Japanese adult video actress Sho Nishino.

Based on a novel by Utsana Phleungtham, Jan Dara was previously adapted in 2001 by Nonzee Nimibutr, who's said he supports Mom Noi's new version.

Apichatpong-a-rama: Mekong Hotel reviewed at Cannes, Ashes

2012-05-22T12:00:00.000+07:00

It's pretty unusual for a short film to be the object of widespread media attention, but then Mekong Hotel isn't the usual short film. Directed by 2010 Cannes Palme d'Or winner Apichatpong Weerasethakul, who returns to the French Riviera film fest to premiere one of his latest works, the hour-long Mekong Hotel, which was shown in an out-of-competition "special screening".

Set in a hotel along the banks of the flooded Mekong, the experimental work weaves together the cast and crew workshopping an unproduced project called Ecstasy Garden, a young couple talking about their relationship, something about the gut-munching Phi Pob ghost (not the krasue as I mistakenly thought earlier) and some dude playing guitar.

There's plenty of reviews, and they are a mixed bag.

Nice things are said at IndieWire, Hammer to Nail, The L Magazine and the Toronto Star.

The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw calls it "interesting but indulgent" while The Observer's Jason Solomons notes:

It contains the literally immortal line: "I will be reborn as a horse and then several kinds of insect." It was screened after lunch in the hot Salle Bazin. On screen, the flies buzzed, the river flowed, the music played and the sun shone – I looked around and counted nine people blissfully asleep in my vicinity. Only for this Zen master director could one say that this reaction should be taken as some kind of compliment.

Maggie Lee, reviewing it for Variety, also picked up on Mekong Hotel's "sleepy rhythm".

But it's the film critic Neil Young, writing for The Hollywood Reporter, who's least enamoured by Mekong Hotel, calling it a "waterlogged squib" while referring to Apichatpong's 2007 short Luminous People, about the interment of funeral ashes in the Mekong, "which achieved much more in 15 minutes than Mekong Hotel manages at just under quadruple the length".

The big rumor that surrounded Mekong Hotel was whether Tilda Swinton was in the cast. Swinton was there at Cannes, but as part of the cast of the festival opener, Moonrise Kingdom by Wes Anderson. Nope, Mekong just has some of Joei's usual suspects, like actress Jenjira Pongpas and actor Sakda Kaewbuadee. So maybe there will be another collaboration with Tilda, beyond the weird little Film on the Rocks Yao Noi festival.

There's a further round-up and lots more background on Mekong Hotel at Fandor. There's also another Apichatpong film premiered at Cannes, though not officially as part of the festival. It's Ashes, a 20-minute short shot with the Lomokino 35mm-film camera.

It's supposedly available for free streaming at Mubi.com, but I couldn't get it to play on my crappy Thai Internet connection. Maybe the local ISP is censoring it because of the politically sensitive subject matter or maybe Mubi isn't allowing it to stream in Thailand for some reason.

See the movies the King saw in 'Seen by H.M.K.'

2012-05-17T21:21:00.001+07:00

The Thai Film Archive will show nine classic films in the screening series "Seen by H.M.K." next week, featuring movies that were viewed by His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej in a public cinema.

Mostly from the 1960s, among them are such Hollywood classics as The Great Escape and Love Story as a well as a James Bond film, You Only Live Twice.

Thai films include the 1961 musical-romance-action-drama Ruen Pae, a.k.a. The Houseboat or The Boat House.

The series opens at 4pm on Tuesday, May 22 in the fifth-floor auditorium of the Bangkok Art and Culture Center, with an invitation-only screening of 1961's Mue Jorn, directed by Vichit Kounavudhi. A relic of the era when most Thai films were shot on 16mm, the archive has transferred its 16mm print to a hi-def digital file. The visual quality is still beautiful with some small scratches, assures programmer Sanchai Chotirosseranee. It will be accompanied by a team of live dubbers, just like when the film was shown back in the '60s.

"Seen by H.M.K." runs from May 23 to May 27 at the BACC and will be repeated afterward at the Film Archive in Salaya, Nakhon Pathom.

Here's the line-up:

The Great Escape (1963, USA) Wed, 23 May at 6 p.m. at BACC and Sun 3 June at 1 p.m. at Film Archive
Amrapali (1966, India) Thu 24 May at 6 p.m. at BACC and Tue 5 June at 5.30 p.m. at Film Archive
Ruen Pae (The Houseboat) (1961, Thailand) Fri 25 May at 6 p.m. at BACC, Monday 4th and Sat 9th June at 1 p.m. at Film Archive
Mue Jorn (1961, Thailand) Sat 26 May, 12 p.m. at BACC, and Fri 8 June, 5.30 p.m. at the Film Archive
Jade Goddess (1969, Taiwan) Sat 26 May at 3 p.m. at BACC
Lord Jim (1965, USA) Sat 26 May at 6 p.m. at BACC and Sat 2 June at 1 p.m. at Film Archive
Love Story (1970, USA) Sun 27 May at 12 p.m. at BACC and Thu 7 June at 5.30 p.m. at Film Archive
You Only Live Twice (1967, USA) Sun 27 May at 3 p.m. at BACC and Wed 6 June at 5.30 p.m. at Film Archive
Pan Din Khong Roa (Our Homeland) (1976, Thailand) Sun 27 May at 6 p.m. and Fri 1 June at 5.30 p.m. at Film Archive

Of the non-English-language films, only Amrapali will be shown with English subtitles. There are no English subtitles on any of the Thai films. Admission is free.

Apichatpong-a-rama: Pob ghost in Mekong Hotel, jury in Locarno

2012-05-16T12:00:00.000+07:00

In just a couple more days, Apichatpong Weerasethakul's latest film, the 61-minute Mekong Hotel will premiere out of competition in a "special screening" at the Cannes Film Festival.

Across the Web, much about the mid-length movie from the Uncle Boonmee maker remains a mystery, but here's a description from the festival website:

Mekong Hotel is a portrait of a hotel near the Mekong River in the northeast of Thailand. The river there marks the border between Thailand and Laos. In the bedrooms and terraces, Apichatpong held a rehearsal with his crew for a movie that he wrote years ago called Ecstasy Garden. The film shuffles different realms, fact and fiction, expressing the bonds between a vampire-like mother and her daughter, the young lovers and the river. Mekong Hotel – since it was shot at the time of the heavy flooding in Thailand – also weaves in layers of demolition, politics, and a drifting dream of the future.

The vampire-like mother, I believe, refers to Phi Pob, the infamous gut-munching female ghost that's been depicted in Thai films throughout history.

A poster turned up somewhere and there are images on the Cannes website as well as at IndieWire's the Playlist which links to more coverage from Chuck "Peter/Andre" Stephens at CinemaScope:

“I’m finishing one very romantic film of a hotel on the Mekong, in Nong Khai,” the helmer also previously explained to CinemaScope. “It’s a one-hour film called Mekong Hotel. My crew goes there, and my friend, who is a guitar teacher, improvises and plays guitar for an hour. My crew is trying to rehearse a movie about this ghost who goes around eating innards. It’s like a documentary but every scene is shot in a hotel room.”

I don't think Tilda Swinton is involved with this, as as been rumored, though she might be. But the cast list on the poster and at the Cannes site don't list her, just some of the usual suspects of Joei's movies, like actress Jenjira Pongpas and actor Sakda Kaewbuadee.

In related news, Apichatpong has been chosen to lead the main-competition at Switzerland'a Locarno fest.

The gushing of the festival organizer comes from Film Business Asia's coverage:

"Apichatpong Weerasethakul has been a major revelation in world cinema," said Locarno's artistic director Olivier Père. "The Thai filmmaker, whose poetic and dreamlike films blend his country's national legends, a sensual feel for the physical and natural world as well as new narrative and visual styles borrowed from contemporary art, has invented a mutant form of cinema that completely overturns our viewing habits and takes us into unexplored areas that verge on the sublime".

The Locarno Film Festival runs from August 1 to 11.

Correction: An earlier version of this post referred to the ghost as the krasue. This was incorrect.

Nonzee is back with Distortion

2012-05-15T12:00:00.000+07:00

Veteran director Nonzee Nimibutr is an ever-present fixture at most film-industry functions in Thailand and around the region.

Fellow "Thai new wave" filmmaker Pen-ek Ratanaruang commented as much when Nonzee handed him his Best Director trophy for Headshot at the recent Subhanahongsa Awards. "Phi Oui is always at these events!" Pen-ek quipped, referring to Nonzee by his nickname.

Nonzee was even among the industry figures who were guests at the recent wedding of martial-arts star Tony Jaa.

But it's been awhile since Nonzee, director of such films as Daeng Bireley's and Young Gangster and Nang Nak, has had a feature in cinemas. In fact, it's been since 2008's swashbuckling fantasy epic Queens of Langkasuka, a.k.a. Legend of the Tsunami Warrior.

His latest release Distortion (คน-โลก-จิต, Kon-Loke-Jit) is in Thai cinemas this week. It's a psychological thriller in which four characters, a psychologist, a scientist, a businessman and a student, somehow become involved a serial-murder case.

There's longer versions of the synopsis around the Web, but my instinct is to stay away from those.

There's also an English-subtitled trailer, embedded below.

Sarunyu Prachakrit, Boonyisa “Poppy” Chantrarachai (first runner up Miss World Thailand 2012), Artit Wiboonpanitch, Arpa Pawilai and Suchao Pongwilai star.

In kind of a weird move, Nonzee himself appeared on early international teaser posters for the movie. It's being released by his Cinemasia production marque under Sahamongkol Film International and was pitched in the Asian Project Market at last year's Busan fest.

Meanwhile, Nonzee has thrown his support behind director ML Bhandevanop "Mom Noi" Devakula's planned remake of his 2001 erotic drama Jan Dara. It'll star Mario Maurer as the title character, marking a departure from Nonzee's version which had two actors playing Jan from boyhood to adulthood.

Ban upheld on Shakespeare Must Die

2012-05-14T02:42:00.000+07:00

Ing K. and Manit Sriwanichpoom's appeal against the banning of their movie Shakespeare Must Die (เชคสเปียร์ต้องตาย, Shakespeare Tong Tai) has been rejected.

The details are from the movie's blog:

12 May 2012

Dear cast and crew, family and friends,

You’ve probably seen yesterday’s bad news: our appeal was rejected. The ban on Shakespeare Must Die “permanently” remains.

Yesterday afternoon around 4pm, the National Board of Film and Video, chaired by General Yuthasak Sasiprapa, Deputy Prime Minister on political affairs and former Defense Minister, who presided on behalf of PM Yingluck Shinawatra, agreed with the Film Censorship Board’s ruling that Shakespeare Must Die is a threat to national unity, therefore its decision to ban the film from distribution in the Kingdom of Thailand is a correct decision that will not be revoked.

We do not accept the legitimacy of this senseless verdict. Our fight against the ban continues so that, by whatever means necessary, Shakespeare Must Die may be shown in Thailand. We fight on though it has now become quite clear that this entails taking on the dictatorial film law itself and superstructure, the climate of fear under the rule of PM Yingluck Shinawatra, the hidden special interest groups as well as unethical and fear-driven abuse of power.

As we waited for the verdict outside the meeting room where our fate was being decided at the Ministry of Culture, it was strange to observe that ministry and censorship office officials who should’ve been inside were all waiting there with us along with an army of reporters. They had been barred from the discussion, as if the Shakespeare Must Die decision were a ‘black-op’ order from above that had to be obeyed in secrecy. It was also notable that neither General Yuthasak, whose office at Government House had all but assured us just last week that the May 11th decision would be a “compromise”, nor Culture Minister Sukumol Khunpleum, and not even Permanent Cultural Secretary Somchai Sianglhai remained to face the press, so that it fell to Deputy Permanent Secretary Aphinan Poshyanonda to announce the indefensible bad news, which seemed to come as a shock to everyone there. He admitted to the press that he found the verdict a difficult and uncomfortable one, and in his opinion the banning law needs to be amended. (Some of his comments are published in detail in Thai Rath daily and online.)

Do not lose hope, people. We must fight on for the sake of every future Thai film as well as for our own. To give up would mean to resign ourselves to the chains that bind Thai cinema, the tyranny that refuses to allow it to bloom into a respected artistic medium with dignity and a free spirit.

With much love and respect for everyone and many thanks for your moral support,

Manit Sriwanichpoom

Producer

Ing K

Director

The next legal step for Shakespeare Must Die would be to appeal to the Central Administrative Court.

There is coverage in the Thai press at Thai Rath, Matichon and Manager.

Industry to celebrate at Cannes Thai Night

2012-05-07T12:48:00.000+07:00

Apichatpong's Mekong Hotel screens on May 18.

With the only Thai film in the Cannes Film Festival's official selection, Mekong Hotel by Apichatpong Weerasethakul, screening on May 18, the Thai film industry and government officials want to celebrate with their annual Thai Night, set for that Friday night in the Grand Salon at the InterContinental Carlton Cannes.

More about the function is explained in the press release that follows:

Presided over by Her Royal Highness Princess Ubolratana Rajakanya Sirivadhana Barnavadi, Thai Night 2012 will be the occasion to celebrate another banner year for Thai cinema.

Palme d'Or winner Apichatpong Weerasethakul is back in the official selection with Mekong Hotel. Also present in Cannes this year is an eclectic new wave of Thai filmmakers who will be showcasing their work at the International Film Market.

Meanwhile, Thailand is cementing its position as one of the most popular filming destinations in Asia. Over the past 15 months, a record 798 foreign productions were filmed in Thailand, including feature films such as Luc Besson's The Lady and Nicolas Winding Refn's Only God Forgives starring Ryan Gosling.

The country's beautiful sceneries and low production costs are not the only reasons for Thailand's growing appeal as a filming location. Thailand now offers among the most skilled and experienced film personnel and technical services available in Asia, from production crews to post-production services, animation and visual effects.

Taking note of the potential of Thailand's film sector, the Royal Thai Government has recently announced new incentives for foreign productions, including full income tax exemption for foreign actors.

All this and more will be at the centre of Thai Night 2012 – Where Films Come Alive, a reception organized by the Department of International Trade Promotion (DITP), Thai Ministry of Commerce.

Attended by Senior Thai Government officials, business leaders and members of the film and entertainment industry, the reception will offer international film professionals and the media an opportunity to meet and greet the Thai filmmakers and talent present in Cannes and forge new ties with the Thai film industry.

Attendance at this event is by invitation only.

To request an invitation, please contact ThaiNightCannes2012 [at] gmail.com.

Apichatpong is expected to be a guest that night.

Market screenings will include Yuthlert Sippapak's hitman drama Friday Killer, the lesbian romance She, the Five Star horror Dark Flight 3D, something called Spirits Wars and a couple of computer-animated features, Echo Planet 3D and Sahamongkol's Yaak.

Review: Venom (Asorapit)

2012-05-01T19:05:00.003+07:00

Directed by Jarunee Thammayu
Starring Nonpichet Wongchanoksirikul, Preecha Ketkham, Chayutpol Bampen
Limited release from April 26-29, 2012 at the Lido cinemas, Bangkok.
Wise Kwai's rating: 3/5

Cheesy special effects involving a giant cobra with red glowing eyes put the bite on an otherwise poignant social drama about religious and class conflict in Venom (อสรพิษ, Asorapit).

Supported by the Culture Ministry’s Thai Khem Khang (Strong Thailand) fund, the indie feature is based on a novella by Dan-aran Saengthong, a.k.a. Saneh Sangsuk, a famous Thai writer who was awarded the Ordre des Arts et Lettres medal by the French Ministry of Culture. Venom was translated into English by Marcel Barang and serialized in the Bangkok Post.

Set in a rural Thai village in the 1970s, the story centers on a young farmer whose mother was killed years before in an attack by a giant snake. Early scenes show the young man and his friends going around killing every snake they can find, and a clutch of cobra eggs is stolen from a swiftly pursuing serpaent and thrown in the mother's funeral fire.

As the years go by, the young man earns an honest living cultivating his small rice paddy. He holds to the traditional ways and is a devout Buddhist. He marries his sweetheart and they have a boy.

Meanwhile in the village there's a shaman who is attracting an increasing number of followers, though some of the men might just be there to look down the unbuttoned blouse of the shaman's large-breasted wife. With his wife helping, the white-clad shaman puts on a show that makes people believe he's possessed by a goddess who tells them they need to build her a temple. When public land is chosen for the temple's location, the farmer protests, making him an enemy of the shaman.

The shaman's influence grows, and more people flock to him instead of the old Buddhist temple.

Further causing trouble for the farmer is when his boy falls from a palm tree and is left with one arm paralyzed.

The shaman's young son becomes the school bully, riding his flashy motorcycle around and collecting a coterie of henchmen. He comes into conflict with the farmer's son.

Despite his disability, the farmer's boy wants to become a master shadow puppeteer. It's when he is putting on a puppet show for his friends that the giant cobra emerges and attacks the boy, coiling around him so that the snake and boy become one hideous creature.

Instead of rushing to help the boy, everyone runs away, and they eventually rally around the shaman, who says that helping the kid would displease the goddess.

It could be a powerful moment, showing the results of a conflict between blind materialism versus the a sufficiency lifestyle. But instead there's that darn snake-boy thing, and many in the audience simply laughed.

See also:

Laddaland, Headshot the big winners at the 21st Subhanahongsa Awards

2012-04-30T13:40:00.000+07:00

Best supporting actor Kuck Wannasak from Mindfulness and Murder, best actress Piyathida Worramusik and supporting actress Suthatta Udomsilp from Laddaland and best director Pen-ek Ratanaruang from Headshot wth their Golden Swan trophies. Photo by Anant Chantarasoot, The Nation

The GTH horror Laddaland and Pen-ek Ratanaruang's upside-down hitman thriller Headshot pretty much evenly divided the spoils at the 21st Subhanahongsa Awards (รางวัลภาพยนตร์แห่งชาติ สุพรรณหงส์) last night at the Siam Paragon's grand Siam Pavalai theater.

Headshot took four awards, winning best director, best actor for "Peter" Nopachai Jayanama and cinematography for Chankit Chamnivikaipong, as well as sound. Headshot, which recently made its U.S. premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival, has dominated the other awards this season.

But the leading nominee Laddaland, a tale of family dysfunction in a haunted housing subdivision, took more Golden Swan trophies, six in all, including Best Picture for GTH, the screenplay by director Sophon Sakdaphisit and co-writer Sopana Chaowiwatkul, best actress for Piyathida Worramusik, as the mother, and supporting actress for Suthatta Udomsilp, who portrayed the teen daughter. It also won for editing, and makeup.

Best supporting actor went to well-known stage performer "Kuck" Wannasak Sirilar for his role as a suspect monk in the Buddhist-themed detective story Mindfulness and Murder.

Other prizes went to Rashomon remake The Outrage for costume design and visual effects; the thirtysomething romance 30 Kamlung Jaew, a.k.a. Fabulous 30, for original song, “Man Kong Pen Kwam Rak” ("Is It Love?") by "Stamp" Apiwat Euthavornsuk; the Thai traditional dance drama Kon Khon for score; and Pumpuang (The Moon), the biopic of the late luk thung singer Pumpuang Duangchan, for art direction.

Adul Dulyarat, a veteran actor and director, perhaps best known for his lead role in the 2004 musical historical drama The Overture, was given this year's lifetime achievement award. His career goes back to 1961, when he acted in the musical romance Ruen Pae (The Boat House)

The lavish ceremonies for the Thai film industry's equivalent of the Oscars were held in the grand Siam Pavalai theater at Paragon Cineplex. Half of the multiplex's lobby was blocked off as the red carpet was laid for attendees in formal evening wear to be photographed on as they walked to the escalator on which they ascended to the theater. But despite the security tape, a few ordinary movie-goers in baggy shorts in T-shirts could be spotted trodding on the red carpet in their flipflops.

Update: The Nation has coverage of the ceremony, plus a recap of Pen-ek's humorous and sarcastic acceptance speech.

(Via @ornpp)

Pen-ek, 'the Hitchcock of Thailand' and censorship of Headshot

2012-04-29T16:00:00.000+07:00

Freaky Deaky director Charlie Matthau and Pen-ek Ratanaruang on the Tribeca Talks panel, "Based on the Book". Photo via DNAinfo.com.

The Tribeca Film Festival in New York wraps up today, and as a quick follow-up to an earlier posting, there's more press coverage of Pen-ek Ratanaruang and his upside-down hitman thriller Headshot.

The Wall Street Journal's Southeast Asia Realtime blog has an interview with Pen-ek, headlined "Hitchcock is alive and well in Thailand,".

In the article, Pen-ek reveals that censors objected to the opening scene when the hitman Tul is posing as a Buddhist monk on his morning alms rounds and he pulls a gun out of his alms bowl.

“It’s sensitive to Thai people,” Mr. Pen-ek says in an interview. “The food bowl of the monk is a sacred object.”

Thailand’s censors took notice and forced him to alter the scene when the film was released there in October.

“We [digitally] had to erase the gun from the bowl,” he says.

Pen-ek sat on a panel, "Tribeca Talks: Based on the Book", according to DNAinfo.com. Headshot is adapted from the "film noir novel" of SEA Write and Silpathorn Award honoree Win Lyovarin, Fon Tok Kuen Fah (ฝนตกขึ้นฟ้า), which means "rain falling up to the sky".

Here are links to several reviews of Headshot:

Film School Rejects takes Pen-ek to task for not using the upside down effect enough, a criticism Pen-ek responded to in an earlier video interview.
Epoch Times was more forgiving, issuing a glowing review, with high praise for the pacing and the performances by lead actor Nopachai Jayanama and actresses Cris Horwang and "Dream" Chanokporn Sayoungkul.
Slant Magazine is positive as well, giving Headshot 3 out of 4 stars.
And Wildgrounds offers a mixed view: "Too focused on being contemplative, confused, symbolic to depict the wandering of a lost soul."

On DVD in Taiwan: Yes or No? So, I Love You

2012-04-29T14:00:00.000+07:00

You might notice in the sidebar on the right that a "popular posts" feature has been added to this blog, and one of the most popular entries is the review for the lesbian college romance Yes or No? So, I Love You. It continually gets comments from viewers who think it is so darn cute.

I'd imagine many of those viewers have been watching the English-subtitled DVD of that movie. It's available at YesAsia.com. Here's the synopsis:

Billed as Thailand's first lesbian romance movie, Yes or No breaks taboos with lighthearted steps. Directed by Sarasawadee Wongsompetch, the cute youth romance about first love and opposites attract follows the popular romcom genre formula, but this time the budding, feuding couple are both girls.

On the first day Pai (Sucharat Manaying) moves into her dorm room, she almost mistakes her new roommate Kim (Supanat Jittaleela) for a guy. Turned off by Kim's androgynous looks, Pai divides the room in half and warns Kim to stay out of her life. Over time, the girls get over their differences and become good friends. But when friendship turns into something more, Pai and Kim must face themselves and their feelings for each other.

It's another DVD that was released a few months ago, but I only just now discovered it when I was rummaging around at the YesAsia site looking for other recent English-friendly DVDs of Thai movies.

The Taiwanese release has the Thai soundtrack and English and Chinese subtitles. It's NTSC format, Region 3.

SuckSeed on DVD in Taiwan, donates prize money to charity

2012-04-29T12:00:00.000+07:00

The cast and crew of SuckSeed donate 150,000 baht to the MIirror Foundation. Photo via Thai Rath.

The teen rock 'n' roll romance SuckSeed is out on English-subtitled Region 3 DVD in Taiwan. It's listed at YesAsia. In fact, it's been out since January, but I'm pretty slow when it comes to English-friendly releases of Thai films on DVD, which are a rarity these days, but occasionally they do happen.

SuckSeed has been reviewed at Coffee Coffee and More Coffee, which notes that "while SuckSeed is not the Thai equivalent to A Hard Day's Night, it is, by turns both funny and charming."

In related news, the film's cast and crew have donated some of the prize money they won in Japan to a Thai charity, according to news reports.

SuckSeed was voted winner of the audience's Laughter Award at the recent Okinawa International Movie Festival, a prize that came with a 2.5 million yen purse, or about 900,000 baht.

Chayanop Boonprakob, his lead actors Patchara Chirathiwat and Jirayu La-ongmanee and other cast members turned right around and gave a portion of that money, 150,000 baht in the form of a big check, to the Mirror Foundation in support of its charitable efforts to support a children's hospital. "Moo" Chayanop was once a volunteer teacher at the Mirror Foundation.

They're open to suggestions about other worthy causes to support.

Previous award-winning GTH films have also donated to charity. The romantic comedy Guan Muen Ho (Hello Stranger) picked up two prizes at last year's Osaka Asian Film Festival, which occurred right around the same time as Japan's earthquake and tsunami disaster. They donated 100,000 baht to the Osaka Consul for victims' relief.

Tony Jaa is getting married

2012-04-26T19:14:00.000+07:00

Congratulations are in order for action star Tony Jaa, who's getting married on May 3. That's the news being reported today in The Nation's Soopsip column:

The 36-year-old star of Ong-Bak and Tom-Yum-Goong has out of the blue announced that he's tying the knot with Rayong native Piyarat "Boongyi" Chotiwattananont, 22. (Who knew they've been dating for almost three years?)

Sahamongkol Film chieftain Somsak "Sia Jiang" Techarattanaprasert has agreed to preside at the nuptials at the Royal Navy Hall and even picked the date – May 3. No, he didn't consult a fortune-teller. He just found a date on the Official Show Business Calendar that had no other massing of the celebrity tribes.

Sia Jiang seems happy despite the wedding stalling production on Tom-Yum-Goong 2. It's 40 per cent done anyway, so the studio can spare Jaa a few days off for a honeymoon.

Presumably, Jaa met his bride when he was filming Ong-Bak 3 in Rayong. Anyway, their marriage fulfills a wish that Jaa's mother made when he entered the monkhood.

On the invitation, he refers to himself as Jaa Panom, not Tatchakorn Yeerum, which he'd changed his name to awhile back.

Update: Twitch's Todd Brown picks up on this news, and he's not especially happy to hear about the delay of Tom-Yum-Goong 2.

The Cheer Ambassadors leaps for VOD release

2012-04-25T21:59:00.003+07:00

The Thai team poses with members of the Norwegian squad at the World Cheerleading Championships.

The Cheer Ambassadors, the documentary about Thailand's scrappy cheerleaders overcoming the odds to be recognized as one of the leading squads in the world, has opted for a video-on-demand release at Prescreen.com.

Check out the page, and you might see a blurb from a familiar blog.

Director Luke Cassady-Dorian told me on Twitter that it's a "60-day Internet pre-release".

Since it screened at the Salaya Doc festival in March, The Cheer Ambassadors has been making the rounds in the press, at film festivals and other functions, including a screening in Singapore and the the 60°N Os International Film Festival in Norway.

Meanwhile, a Bangkok theatrical release is still hopefully in the works.

While more appearances are being lined up, take the time now to cozy up with your computer screen and stream the movie live.

Pen-ek wears cool sunglasses, talks about Headshot

2012-04-24T12:00:00.000+07:00

Pen-ek Ratanaruang's Headshot (Fon Tok Kuen Fah, ฝนตกขึ้นฟ้า) has made its U.S. premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival, from which the film has been mentioned in the U.S. press, including the New York Times.

Huffington Post has a video interview with Pen-ek (embedded below), recorded at the offices of Kino Lorber, Headshot's U.S. distributor. In it, Pen-ek is wearing cool shades as he talks about the decisions to not show the upside-down world of the hitman so much.

Headshot is also screening in the San Diego Asian Film Foundation’s Spring Showcase.

Apichatpong-a-rama: Mekong Hotel for Cannes, plus Rocks, Walker Art and Quattro 2

2012-04-19T21:49:00.000+07:00

Swinton and Apichatpong at a Bangkok press conference last month ahead of the Film on the Rocks festival . Nation photo by Anant Chantarasoot.

The French Riviera will get another blissful dose of Apichatpong Weerasethakul next month. In the announcement today of the main line-up for the 65th Cannes Film Festival, Apichatpong's Mekong Hotel is listed among the non-competitive Special Screenings.

Heavy on Hollywood titles, this year's Cannes line-up has only a handful of Asian films, Film Business Asia reports.

Mekong Hotel has been a long-gestating project, with Apichatpong talking about it more than a year ago, saying he'd long wanted to make a film about "water", specifically the Mekong. And there was a mention of Tilda Swinton somehow being involved.

“It’s definitely not going to be a film that will just have a foreign movie star for the sake of it," he was quoted as saying back in February 2011. "It’s going to be an exchange of ideas, of images, of ... I don’t know. It’s like a game for me: the river, the pigs, and Tilda Swinton.”

It should come as no surprise that Mekong Hotel has been selected for Cannes, where Apichatpong has a long relationship, going back to 2002, when he won the Un Certain Regard prize with Blissfully Yours. Then came the main-competition Jury Prize in 2004 for Tropical Malady, a spot on the main jury in 2008 and finally blowing up big time with the Palme d'Or top prize in 2010 for Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives.

However, at this point, I am uncertain whether Swinton is actually involved in Mekong Hotel.

But earlier last month, Apichatpong and Swinton finally collaborated on a project, having stoked their mutual admiration of each other through lengthy e-mail correspondence. The British actress had invoked the filmmaker's name in her 2006 State of Cinema address.

That collaboration turned out to be Film on the Rocks Yao Noi, an exclusive little festival at the luxury Six Senses resort in Phang-nga Bay near Phuket. With only a 100 or so people invited, mainly artsy high-society types, the quirky event seemed designed mostly to attract press attention, which it did, including international coverage.

The festival's eye-candy quotient was boosted by the unique floating Archipelago Cinema designed by Beijing-based architect Ole Scheeren. The screen was erected in front of a towering pair of Phang-nga Bay's scenic karst rock outcroppings. Film-goers had to take a boat to reach the platform, which had benches and beanbags for seating. The eclectic selection of rarely seen movies included a 16mm print of Empire by Andy Warhol.

Kong Rithdee had a write-up of the fest last month. Go read that if you want to know more about what you missed.

The captive audience of Film on the Rocks. Photo via HuffPo.

Meanwhile, there's more work ahead for Apichatpong. Among his upcoming jobs is a video commissioned by Minneapolis-St. Paul's Walker Art Center. There's brief report about it at the Star Tribune.

The Walker Art website has more:

This much-anticipated online piece from boundary-breaking director Apichatpong Weerasethakul makes its debut as the first artist commission on the Walker Channel. The source for live and archived video of the Walker’s public programming, the Walker Channel includes lectures, dialogues, and performances involving artists, scholars, and critics of contemporary art and culture.

Weerasethakul’s short video, under discussion since he was the subject of a Regis Dialogue and Retrospective in 2004, has been created amid a packed schedule of projects — one that’s only grown more intense since his feature film Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives won the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 2010. The artist is also making work for documenta 13 in June and is completing his newest film, Mekong Hotel.

Walker film curator Sheryl Mousley calls Weerasethakul an ideal choice for the multidisciplinary institution’s first Walker Channel commission: “His ability to mix genres — experimental, narrative, documentary — is only part of his distinctive vision,” she says. “He’s also so accomplished in both old and new media: besides films, he makes objects, video installations, and exhibitions, and integrates his vision across those art forms, always with amazing results.”

Plans are to launch the channel in June.

Finally, closer to home, Bangkok's SF World Cinema will host a Hong Kong Film Festival from April 26 to May 2. Among the titles is Quattro Hong Kong 2, a pan-Asian short-film omnibus that was commissioned for last year's Hong Kong International Film Festival. Apichatpong's M Hotel is part of a package that also features work by Filipino director Brillante Mendoza, Malaysia's Ho Yuhang and Hong Kong's Stanley Kwan.

Update: The Wall Street Journal's Scene Asia Blog has more on Mekong Hotel.

Shakespeare Must Die not quite dead yet

2012-04-17T18:58:00.002+07:00

Filmmakers Ing K. and Manit Sriwanichpoom of the banned Shakespeare Must Die submitted their letter of appeal and put on a Shakespeare-themed public protest today.

Among those taking part in the protest was Tanwarin Sukkapisit, whose Insects in the Backyard was the first Thai film to be banned under the country's new film law.

Receiving much coverage in the international press, Shakepeare Must Die (เชคสเปียร์ต้องตาย, Shakespeare Tong Tai) was banned earlier this month by the Film and Video Censorship Board, chaired by Police Major-General Anek Samplang. The board feared the politically charged film would "undermine the unity of the people in the country".

The synopsis is as follows:

A tale of politics and black magic, translated into Thai directly and exactly from William Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Macbeth, with some cinematic and Thai cultural adaptations, this “Shakespearean horror movie” takes place in two parallel worlds: inside the theatre, the world of the play about the ambitious and bloody general who becomes king by murder, and the ‘outside world’ in the contemporary lives of the (non-specific) country’s superstitious, megalomaniacal, and murderous dictator, known only as ‘Dear Leader’, and his scary high-society wife. Events in the twin worlds mirror and soon bleed into each other until they catastrophically collide, when the players must pay dearly for staging such a play in a society ruled by such a man. What were they thinking, to fight fear with art?

The film had received funding from the Thai Khem Kaeng (Strong Thailand) "creative economy" initiative of the Cultural Ministry's Office of Contemporary Art and Culture, but that was under the previous government of Abhisit Vejjajiva, now the leader of the opposition wing in Thai Parliament.

Although Ing K. says her film is not about Thai politics, there are images in the film's trailer that recall the 2010 political protests by the "red-shirt" movement, which supports the current government of Yingluck Shinawatra, sister of Thaksin Shinawatra who was ousted from power in a 2006 military coup. The tycoon populist leader has been a fugitive ever since, but is making moves to return to Thailand under a proposed amnesty that could also undermine the unity of the people of the country.

And need I say that the "Dear Leader" in Shakespeare Must Die somewhat physically resembles Thaksin?

Thailand's National Film Board will make a final decision on April 25 whether it will allow the release of Shakespeare Must Die, according to The Nation.

Update: There's more coverage in the Bangkok Post, with Manit threatening to defy the ban and an interview with Ing K.

Review: Home

2012-04-17T16:24:00.001+07:00

Directed by Chookiat Sakveerakul
Starring Juthawut Wattanakampon, Kittisak Pathomburana, Penpak Sirikul, Siraphan Wattanajinda, Ruangsak Loychoosak
Released in Thai cinemas on April 19, 2012 (sneak previews from April 12-16); rated 18+
Wise Kwai's rating: 4/5

Since 2007's Love of Siam, Chookiat Sakveerakul has mainly contributed to short-film projects such as 4 Romances, Lud 4 Lud and Sawasdee Bangkok, and he's still in short-film mode of sorts as he directs his first feature film in five years, Home (Home ความรัก ความสุข ความทรงจำ, Home Khwam Rak Khwam Sook Khwam Songjam). Dedicated to his recently departed father, it's a heartfelt and sentimental collection of three stories, all set in his hometown of Chiang Mai, which ponders endings and beginnings.

The first story is set at night under the luminous glow of a Catholic high school, where a soon-to-graduate senior (Juthawut Wattanakampon) has set up his camera and is taking photos of the empty campus. He encounters an underclassmen acquaintence (Kittisak Pathomburana). He's a member of the basketball team who's just hanging out. The pair of young men then spend the rest of the evening talking. Their humorous and light-hearted banter of course turns to girls and relationships and the photographer is pestered into revealing that he has a crush on someone and that it's not a girl. His new jock buddy expresses shock but not necessarily disapproval, though later he swears he doesn't go with gays. A friendship has been formed, and maybe more, but morning brings an awkward meeting with another guy and even more awkward and strained goodbye.

The middle section stars Penpak Sirikul, who solidly anchors the film as the widowed wife of a farmer who's still trying to solve the puzzle left to her by her husband, who died of throat cancer. In his last stages, after he could no longer speak, he was leaving notes for his wife, which she continues to find as she goes through his papers or looks in other nooks and crannies of their belongings.

This dramatic, tearful segment is lightened by Penpak's character's farmhand nephew and his dingbat girlfriend, who live with her. At the dinner table one evening, at Penpak's urging, the girl starts to talk about her sexual frustration due to her man being tired from farm work all day, and she reels off a endless stream of metaphors – her cobwebbed cave, her closed shop, etc. – that had the audience in stitches. There's also a fairly explicit sex scene, which is the likedly reason censors deemed Home strong enough for an 18+ (but still unrestricted) rating.

It's a fantastical segment, recalling Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Uncle Boonmee, in which the widow communes in her dreams with the boy spirit of her dead hubby. The dreams and the found notes leading her to believe that an offering of a case of beer to a monk would be appropriate, the monk asks her take it back.

The closing section is a wedding, with "Noon" Siriphan Wattanajinda as a northern bride who's marrying a wealthy factory owner (Ruangsak Loychoosak) from Phuket in the south. They seem to be a poor fit, with the closed-mouth guy spending more time working with his iPad than communicating with his wife-to-be.

The arrival of the groom's mother brings more trouble, as the snooty woman has nothing but complaints about having to travel to Chiang Mai to the remote resort "in the middle of the jungle" for the wedding ceremony.

The bride has support from colorful friends, her comic-relief aunt (scene-stealing Puttachat Pongsuchat) and her anal-retentive brother (Love of Siam's Witwisit Hirunyawongkul), who's handling the elaborate wedding arrangements, including a band – another chance for Chookiat and his pals to demonstrate their musical talent.

After a night of drinking with her old Chiang Mai friends, she talks with an old boyfriend, which leads to a classic romantic-comedy misunderstanding that leads to classic romantic-comedy wedding-ceremony troubles. And Noon Siriphan leaks so much water from her eyes you have to wonder if a flash-flood warning was issued during the production.

If anything, this segment reveals the weird things Thais do at weddings, which apparently involve ritual public humiliation amid shooting gold confetti. After seeing Home, I can't understand why anyone would want to get married if that's what they are expected to go through. But that's just me.

It's here that all three segments are tied together, with Chookiat cleverly finding useful ways to integrate the other characters – Penpak is a flower arranger and friend of the bride's family, while the photographer is taking pictures of the wedding. And all three storylines come to fitting and poetic conclusions, one sad, another wistful and the other hopeful.

Notably, the film is mostly in the Northern Thai dialect and Bangkok screenings have dual English and central Thai subtitles.

See also:

Related posts:

Home sweet home for Love of Siam director

Review: Plon Na Ya 2 Ai Yah!

2012-04-17T16:11:00.004+07:00

Directed by Poj Arnon
Starring Jaturong Pollabong, Charoenporn Onlamai, Kirk Schiller, Somchai Kemklad, Pharanyu Rotchanawutthitham, Thana Sutthikmon, Treechada Marnyaporn, Bongkot Kongmalai
Released in Thai cinemas on April 5, 2012; rated 15+
Wise Kwai's rating: 3/5

With great trepidation, I checked out Poj Arnon's latest katoey comedy and was surprised when a half-decent action film broke out. Not only that, amid the usual shreiking and carrying on by the transgender cast and comedians in drag, the story was even more-or-less coherent, despite increasingly outlandish plot complications – a remarkable accomplishment for a Poj Arnon film.

Plon Na Ya 2 Ai Yah! (ปล้นนะยะ 2 อั๊ยยยย่ะ) is the sequel to Poj Arnon's 2004 katoey comedy remake of Dog Day Afternoon, Spicy Beautyqueen in Bangkok, about financially struggling transgender folks who form a gang in order to rob a bank.

The first film featured Nang Nak and Bang Rajan leading man Winai Kraibutr in a admireably committed performance as a cabaret dancer who needs cash for a sex-change operation. Spicy Beautyqueen also gained notoriety after Louis Vuitton's agressive copyright watchdogs demanded the removal of LV logos from the outlandish soccer-themed costume worn by gang leader Jaturong "Mokjok" Pollaboon. So now, thanks to LV's lawyers, if you watch Spicy Beautyqueen, the entire latter half of the movie has Jaturong's Louis Vuitton knock-off dress blurred out with the same kind of pixellation smudges that prevent Thai TV viewers from seeing such offensive acts as smoking, drinking alcohol or guns pointed at heads.

Plon Na Ya 2 picks up the story eight years later. Winai isn't back, but Jaturong's character is. He, or rather she, has returned to Thailand after a stint in New Zealand. Also returning from the first film is Charoenporn "Khotee" Onlamai's character who was killed off previously but had a twin running a sheep ranch in New Zealand. Initially a straight-acting man, he's convinced by his "madam" Jaturong to adopt her cross-dressing lifestyle and he takes to it rather quickly.

Joining the cast this time around is Kirk Schiller, playing a flamboyant transgender friend of Jaturong's character. Together, they plan to undergo sex-change surgery at the same time. He keeps his mustache and goatee beard, and offers a coarse explanation as to why late in the film.

That same morning, Somchai Kemklad and several young guys from Poj Arnon's limitless stable are heading off to work. If you remember the first film, you might recall Somchai had a cameo as a pizza-delivery guy, and if you don't remember there's a black-and-white flashback that also briefly reveals Jaturong's forbidden Louis Vuitton dress. It's Somchai's first day on the job as the driver of a Bangkok city bus, and his brother is among the passengers. Ripping a page from current-events headlines as Poj Arnon often does, gangster students from rival technical schools start a brawl aboard the bus. Gunshots are fired and the driver's brother is seriously wounded.

Fast-moving events bring the folks from the bus shooting to the same hospital where the sex-change patients are having their operations.

With the arrival of armed gangsters, the situation escalates into a hostage stand-off with the police.

And then there's a fairly entertaining car chase that has the transgender folks, hostages and the bus gang getting mixed up with victims fleeing from the thugs of a gambling kingpin. They are driving their cars while wearing motorcycle helmets that turn out to be rigged to explode if they try to remove them.

And there is indeed an explosion, with one of the cars blowing up. An outtake reel at the end of the movie shows the car did a corkscrew rollover and landed upright before exploding. I'm not sure why that cool stunt didn't make it into the movie.

With breathless implausibility, the transgender criminals, the bus gang, the hostages from the hospital and a surviving gambling kingpin captive band together to plan a robbery of the gambling kingpin's mansion.

Here's another chance for the costume designers – a department overseen by Poj Arnon himself – to go hog wild with exagerrated wigs and colorful sequined cabaret gowns. Even Somchai Kemklad dons drag.

Also joining the cast time around is transgender beauty queen "Poy" Treechada Marnyaporn playing a helpful surgeon named Yingluck. Surely it's no coincidence that Yingluck happens to be the name of Thailand's first female prime minister. She dons a mid-riff-baring drag-queen outfit and gets into the spirit of the caper by saucily helping to "seduce" the gambling kingpin's henchmen.

And "Tak" Bongkot Kongmalai takes part in the proceedings as one of the motorcycle-helmet-bomb captives who joins with the robbery scheme. She and Poj Arnon had earlier feuded during the production of the action film Dangerous Flowers, a.k.a. Chalee's Angels, but they've apparently patched things up.

More shooting, shouting and brandishing of weapons ensues and our heroines and heroes eventually make their escape to South Korea for another chance at sex-change surgery. Khotee, Kirk and Jaturong all don traditional Korean costumes and pose for Thai tourists. Somchai and his cohorts get a chance to wear stylish cold-weather gear and play at being Korean gangsters. And there are more outtakes reels in which live octopuses are harmed – something all Thai movies shot in South Korea must be compelled to show.

It all mostly works, somehow, thanks mainly to the humorous charm of rotund little cross-dressing comedian Khotee who always manages to be funny even in the most dire circumstances.

As confusing as this all sounds, I was surprised at how tolerable Plon Na Ya 2 was. Nonetheless, I won't be waiting with bated breath for Plon Na Ya 3, as inevitable as it seems.

Related posts:

Talking dogs and Spicy Beauty Queens in sequels

Home sweet home for Love of Siam director

2012-04-12T12:00:00.000+07:00

The critically acclaimed 2007 smash-hit Love of Siam catapulted young director Chookiat Sakveerakul to worldwide fame with its tender story of gay teenage puppy love and family dysfunction.

And matters of heart and family are still near and dear to him as he explores them in his new movie Home (Home ความรัก ความสุข ความทรงจำ, Home Khwam Rak Khwam Sook Khwam Songjam), which opens in wide release in Thailand on April 19.

A VIP premiere was held last night at Bangkok's House cinema, and folks are already raving about it. And, in a mysteriously light week for Thai releases during the big Songkran Thai New Year holiday, there will be limited nightly sneak previews for Home in select Bangkok cinemas, during the long weekend running through Monday.

Home is a collection of three stories set in Chookiat's northern Thailand hometown of Chiang Mai.

One has a pair of high-school pals (Juthawut Wattanakampon and Kittisak Pathomburana) reminiscing about their school days, and there's an undercurrent that there's perhaps something more to the friendship.

Another thread is about a northern gal ("Noon" Siriphan Wattanajinda) who's getting cold feet as she's about to marry a southern lad (Ruangsak Loychoosak).

And a third storyline stars veteran actress Penpak Sirikul – yes, her, again – who earlier this year starred in It Gets Better and is on big screens now in She. In Home, she portrays a soon-to-be-widowed wife of a man (Witoon Jaiprom) with terminal cancer.

Love of Siam star Witwisit Hirunyawongkul figures in there somewhere too.

Promisingly, the movie is rated 18+, indicating there's material that the censors felt was pretty strong.

Since Love of Siam, Chookiat, or "Madiaw" as he's known by his pals, has been busy starting his own multimedia production company which focuses on films, TV commercials and music, among other things.

In film, he's mainly been doing short projects, like the animated segment for 4 Romances, a short for the Sawasdee Bangkok project and a segment for the horror omnibus Lud 4 Lud. He also produced the movie last year called Puan Mai Kao, about school chums (played by members of Love of Siam's August Band) taking a cycling trip across Thailand. And he's been active with has various music projects.

A look at his filmography will reveal there's two sides to Chookiat – the guy who makes tender, sentimental family-oriented movies like Love of Siam and Home and the helmer of such gory thrillers as 2004's Pisaj (Evil) and 2006's 13 Beloved, a.k.a. 13: Game of Death.

And fans of the latter kind of movies are probably wondering at the top of their lungs – when the heck will the sequel to 13: Game of Death ever be made!? Well, 14 Beyond, envisioned as a blockbuster action flick, has been on Sahamongkol's calendar for the past few years, but keeps getting pushed back out of budgetary concerns. But word is, after Home, it'll be time to get to work on 14 Beyond. Fingers crossed for that one.

In the meantime, check out the English-subtitled trailer for Home, embedded below, and see if you can hold back the tears.

Review: Ma-Mha 2 (Mid-Road Gang 2)

2012-04-12T11:59:00.000+07:00

Directed by Pantham Thongsang
Starring Jirayu La-onggamee, Pitisak Yaowananon
Released in Thai cinemas on April 5, 2012; rated G.
Wise Kwai's rating: 3/5

"Never work with children or animals" is an old showbiz adage that's been incorrectly attributed over the years to W.C. Fields. In fact, it's drawn from a 1939 roast of the pugnacious comedian in which writer Leo Rosten said, “The only thing I can say about W.C. Fields is this: Any man who hates dogs and babies can’t be all bad.”

Whoever said it, Pantham Thongsang has surely heard it, but he's chosen to ignore it as he directed Ma-Mha 2 (มะหมา 2, a.k.a. Mid-Road Gang 2), a movie that has dogs as stars and a baby as a main plot element. And all the human actors are secondary, or just idiots.

It's a sequel to 2007's Mid-Road Gang (มะหมา 4 ขาครับ, Ma-Mha 4 Ka Krub), bringing back most of the old dogs and adding a few new dogs and new tricks. A motion-comic opening credits sequence recaps the events of the first movie and introduces the old characters, including the main human villain Ong-Art, portrayed by Pitisak Yaowanon, who was left insane, put in an institution and now hates dogs.

The main character this time around is Jer, voiced by Jirayu La-onggamee. He's a Buakhaew, a Thai purebred dog that is said to be descended from jackals, a point that isn't in his favor later on. They are known for their fierce loyalty and protectiveness, but also need lots of attention.

Jer is owned by a famous actress and her architect husband, and becomes a celebrity himself after a TV show broadcasts a video of his exploits, which depict him growing from puppyhood, pushing a shopping cart and, in grainy CCTV footage, killing a large snake that was about to bite his architect master. But then his loving owners bring home a baby, and, one night they leave Jer and the infant in the care of the actress' slacker brother.

It just so happens that Ong-art and a female inmate have escaped from the insane asylum, and Ong-art is obsessed with the actress Wan. They break in to the house and kidnap the baby, but not without first tangling with the fiercely protective Jer. He's caught with a bloody diaper in his jaws and the baby is gone. The actress and her hubby return from their function followed by TV cameras and cops, and the dog is accused of taking the baby.

Now here's an Imperial star-destroyer-size plot hole – if the couple had a trusted maid/nanny, as most Thai couples of their stature in movies/TV would, this whole problem would have been avoided. But then there would be no movie franchise.

The only solution is for Jer to clear his name by tracking down the telepathic baby that can talk to him and bring the kid home.

Meanwhile, the gang of old dogs from the first movie are being taken from their comfortable lives in Dogtopia by a mysterious dog-catching mafia. The remaining original "Mid-Road Gang" are Piak, the plucky little showbiz dog (indeed, he's in lots of movies and commercials) and Geng, the shaggy mutt who "married" the poodle Sexy. They have a daughter Pong-Pong, a silky-haired white sort-of Lhasa Apso type, who becomes the romantic interest for the hero dog. Also back for more is Pikun, a kindly and wise older female street dog.

All the madcap action is played up for laughs. I attended a screening that started at close to midnight on a weeknight, and, surprisingly, there were a few children in the audience who thought everything was hilarious, especially the jokes about poop and flatulence noises. At one point, an elephant comes to the rescue as an ally of the dogs, and the pachyderm farted in our general direction, with help from wind machines that blew the hair of the villains onscreen.

In-the-know filmgoers might pick up on a few references, with the baby-snatching asylum escapees being a reminder of the desperate childless couple in the Coen brothers' Raising Arizona. And the head of the dog-catching mafia is a weird chubby little boy who dresses just like Anton Chighur, the terrifying villain Javier Bardem played in the Coens' No Country for Old Men. With his bowl-cut hairdo and cowboy boots, he even carries an air tank that he uses to incapacitate (though not kill) his captured prey.

With viral social media tracking the dogs' progress, the chase leads them to the Dreamworld amusement park, where the dogs outwit the bumbling dogcatchers by riding cable cars and log flumes. They also create chaos at a stunt show. They hop a freight train and the action eventually moves to the streets of Ayutthaya, where the dogs run through alleys and dodge obstacles just like Tony Jaa in Ong-Bak. And just in case no one picks up on that reference, the dogs actually invoke the name of their stunt god, "Tony Jaa". They also swim, pull a wagon and walk across beams.

It's good old-fashioned fun moviemaking, harking back to the talking-animal shorts and features that were shown on TV's "Wonderful World of Disney". Refreshingly, the dogs don't "talk" with the help of any distracting CGI like they do in Garfield, Cats and Dogs or other recent "live action" talking-animal flicks. Camera movement and framing are used to indicate the animal speaking, with the dog actors just panting away, like they were trained to do. Okay, there is some CGI, like for a pair of helpful bird characters who get the dogs pointed in the right direction.

Pantham Tongsang, the director of the acclaimed social drama Ai-Fak and producer of Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Syndromes and a Century perhaps never imagined he'd be directing talking-dog movies. But now, after directing two Ma-Mha movies he's got a franchise on his hands. The only way to proceed is with Ma-Mha 3. Hopefully it won't take 35 dog's years for that sequel.

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Talking dogs and Spicy Beauty Queens in sequels

Review: She

2012-04-10T22:16:00.002+07:00

Directed by Sranya Noithai
Starring Penpak Sirikul, Ann Siriwan Baker, Apassaporn Saengthong, Kitchya Kaesuwan
Released in Thai cinemas on March 22, 2012; rated 13+
Wise Kwai's rating: 3/5

Social-issue movies were popular in Thailand back in the 1970s, but with audiences lapping up a steady diet of silly comedies, the more serious films aren't made much these days.

There was hope for a movie like She though, after a similarly themed romance, Yes or No, So I Love You, went viral to become a cult hit in 2010. Yes or No was about female college roommates who overcome their differences and fall in love.

She (เรื่องรักระหว่างเธอ, Ruang Rak Rawang Ther), "based on true stories of Thai women", deals with slightly more-mature lesbian lovers – a wealthy businesswoman hooking up with a younger female photographer, and a magazine columnist who strikes up a relationship with her tomboy neighbor.

With a fine cast, led by the strikingly ageless 50-year-old model-actress Penpak Sirikul as the businesswoman, and handsome-looking production values, She looked poised to capture the same audience that loved the cute girls in Yes or No.

But She: Their Love Story, as the official international title goes, hasn't quite caught on yet, and has performed only modestly at the Thai box office. It became harder to find just one week after its March 22 release, when it went head-to-head with Hollywood's The Hunger Games and the Thai 3D horror blockbuster Dark Flight 407.

The problem with She is that it's overly melodramatic and moves a bit slower than its 90-minute running time would suggest.

What's supposedly the main story focuses on Penpak's businesswoman divorcing from her husband of many years and leaving him and her teenage daughter behind to live full time at her luxurious seaside resort. There, she catches the eye of a lesbian freelance photographer (Ann Siriwan Baker) who's been hired to take pictures for new brochures.

Freed from her marriage, she casts her inhibitions to the ocean breeze and begins a new relationship with the lantern-jawed lady shutterbug. But there's a hidden reason why Penpak has left her family, and it all comes out in a tirade of shouting and crying.

The "B" plot actually has more to say. And it's supposed to provide relief from the heavier goings on at the resort, but it too gets weighed down in messy, overwrought melodrama. It starts out lightly comic though, with a young magazine columnist named Da (Apassaporn Saengthong) arriving at work to find that her ex-boyfriend has e-mailed their sex video clips to all her colleagues.

Her editor thinks the disgraced Da can bounce back by embarking on a new project – writing about lesbian romance from a first-person viewpoint. Da, a typical girly-girl, is at first horrified. Turns out, conveniently, she lives across the hall from a tomboy, and screws up her face in revulsion when she sees her neighbor Bee (Kitchya Kaesuwan) kissing another woman. She calls it "unnatural", among other slurs. But later on the nosy reporter Da turns on the charm when she invites Bee to a dinner of microwaved meals from the 7-Eleven.

Bee, who looks like a handsome young man, takes Da to a lesbian bar, where Da is picked up by a particularly "hard tom" who takes Da back to her place and attempts to rape her while wearing kink gear of bunny ears and a ballet tutu. But after that surreal bit of comedy-drama, the B-story turns heavy as Da re-evaluates her feelings for the sensitive Bee.

The relationship of this mismatched pair moves unbelievably fast, given Da's initial homophobia. Eventually it's Bee who tries to make sense of things, telling Da that she's bound by too many rules.

As for the main story, I've heard the theory that Penpak's character is a closeted lesbian who was trapped in a marriage and raising a family for two decades. But I am not sure that is the case. And perhaps there are more nuances in the dynamics of the relationships that I'm not picking up on.

On the positive side, Penpak's character's husband turns out to be a swell guy who just wants her to be happy – better than the disapproving mother-in-law or the angry, petulant teenage daughter.

Love scenes are fairly steamy, perhaps too much for the 13+ rating given by censors, but then again maybe not.

The two stories aren't in any way linked, though attempts to do so are made, with the B-story characters turning up at the Pattaya resort, and later viewing photos taken by the photographer.

See also:

She: A true Thai romance [The Nation]

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More Thai lesbian romance in She